The Life of Aesop (the Life) is a fictional biography of Aesop.Footnote 1 It survives in three recensions of which the Vita G is the longest and thought to be closest to the original.Footnote 2 In the Life, we follow Aesop from his birth in Phrygia and his service as a slave on Samos to his adventures in the East and his death in Delphi. Aesop, who is physically deformed and unable to speak, initially works as a slave in the fields. After helping a lost priestess, Aesop miraculously receives the gift of speech from Isis and the Muses as a reward for his piety, thereby becoming a ‘composer of fables’ (ὁ λογοποιόςFootnote 3) and a ‘great benefactor of humanity’ (ὁ πάντα βιωφɛλέστατοςFootnote 4). Aesop then journeys to Samos where he is purchased by the philosopher Xanthus. In a hilarious set of episodes, Aesop repeatedly outwits, confounds, and humiliates Xanthus.Footnote 5 Eventually, Aesop is freed, whereupon he becomes a royal adviser in Lydia and Babylon. Finally, he journeys to Delphi where he is falsely accused of theft and meets his death. The Delphians are thrice punished for causing Aesop's death: they suffer a famine, military attack, and are required to pay compensation.
Several features of the Life are fable-like.Footnote 6 Firstly, there is the connection with Aesop: fables are often ascribed to Aesop or collected under his name, and the Life claims to be a biography of the fabulist himself. Secondly, there is the tripartite narrative structure of the Life, as represented by the early episodes, the Samian episodes, and the post-manumission and Delphic episodes. Thirdly, there is the ‘moral’ message of the Life which, as I shall argue, ‘speaks truth to power’ in the same manner as some notable Aesopic fables.Footnote 7 Thus, in Fables of Power, Patterson posited that the Life may be read as a ‘complex fable’ or ‘metafable’.Footnote 8 Yet, if this is the case, how should we interpret the fable and what is its moral?
According to Holzberg, the moral of the Life is straightforward: a slave whom the gods endow with the gift of artful speech rises through the ranks until he is seized with hubris and pays with his life.Footnote 9 The ‘hubris’ that Aesop is guilty of is that ‘[i]n the temple which he has built for the Muses as a token of his gratitude for their gift of eloquence, he raises in the midst of their statues not a likeness of Apollo Musagetes, but of himself. This enrages the god of Delphi so greatly that he later supports his priests in the conspiracy against Aesop’.Footnote 10 Thus, the moral of the Life is that ‘for the silver-tongued too, pride comes before a fall’.Footnote 11
A number of scholars have expressed similar views. Marinčič regards Aesop as lacking in the necessary ‘Socratic self-deprecation’ and consequently being punished for his ‘escalation of hybris’.Footnote 12 Robertson regards Aesop as falling victim to his anger;Footnote 13 Hopkins talks of Aesop's death as a necessary act of revenge;Footnote 14 and Merkle concludes that Aesop's death at Delphi is designed to show us that ‘what goes (or is) up must come down’.Footnote 15 So, it would seem, Aesop must be, ‘brought down’ because he becomes a boastful fool,Footnote 16 ‘a philosopher who collects fees, a pig who walks, an ex-slave who insults non-paying Delphians by calling them slaves’.Footnote 17 But must our reading of the Life be quite so negative and, more importantly, is it accurate?
I
The first problem with viewing Aesop as hubristic is that it glosses over the events that take place immediately after his death. Let us re-examine the last two sentences of the Life:
λοιμῷ δὲ κατασχɛθέντɛς οἱ Δέλφιοι χρησμὸν ἔλαβον παρὰ τοῦ Διὸς ἐξιλɛώσασθαι <τὸν> τοῦ Αἰσώπου μόρον. μɛτὰ ταῦτα, ἀκούσαντɛς οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἑλλάδος καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ Βαβυλῶνος καὶ <οἱ> Σάμιοι, ἐξɛδίκησαν τὸν τοῦ Αἰσώπου θάνατον.
Life of Aesop §142But when the Delphians were afflicted with a plague, they consulted an oracle from Zeus, which stated that they should expiate the death of Aesop. And when the Greeks, Babylonians, and Samians heard of Aesop's execution, they avenged his death.
This ending raises a number of important questions. Why are the Delphians punished if the killing of Aesop was justified?Footnote 18 Why do three communities mobilise forces to defend a man who apparently deserved to die? Why would Zeus intervene on behalf of a mortal who was allegedly so hubristic as to imagine himself equal to the gods?
There is no doubt that the punishment of the Delphians is dealt with in a cursory manner but this may be because it was such a familiar part of the story, not because the author wished to diminish their guilt.Footnote 19 Aesop's death at Delphi was, after all, the most notorious episode of his life. Herodotus (2.134) recounts that after Aesop was executed, the Delphians were instructed by an oracle to offer compensation. Likewise, Aristophanes refers to Aesop being accused of stealing a sacred cup from the temple at Delphi (Ar. Vesp. 1446–48).Footnote 20 Aesop denied the charge and told the fable of the dung beetle. The story of Aesop taunting the Delphians is also alluded to by CallimachusFootnote 21 and Aesop's death at Delphi is mentioned in a Hellenistic collection of biographies.Footnote 22 Did the author wish to avoid revisiting familiar ground and have we perhaps confused the brevity of the Life's ending with a lack of significance?
A second problem for the view of Aesop as hubristic is that Aesop is repeatedly referred to as a pious man.Footnote 23 The priestess of Isis describes Aesop as a man ‘who suffers and is yet pious’ (§5) while Isis herself describes him as ‘the very image of true piety’ (§7).Footnote 24 Aesop admits that being pious is ‘a good thing’ (§8) and he warns the Delphians against hubris, saying: ‘Since you are but mortals, do not consider yourselves higher than gods’ (§128).Footnote 25 Aesop is consistently shown to be pious toward Isis (§4, §8), the Muses (§8, §100), and Zeus (§33). In relation to Zeus, Aesop says: ‘Zeus, indeed, can keep the sun and moon from shining, and the stars from moving in their appointed times, if he becomes angry’ (§115). None of these statements is consistent with the view of Aesop as hubristic.Footnote 26
A third problem is that Aesop's death is not effective in silencing him or ‘bringing him down’ (at least not in a reputational sense). On the contrary, the execution of Aesop seems to have enhanced his fame and reputation as a fabulist. At the beginning of the Life, Isis prays that Aesop will ‘achieve fame’ (ἔνδοξος γένηται §7), and, at the end of the Life, news of Aesop's unjust death has travelled far and wide, both on earth and in heaven (§142). All of this suggests that the ‘pride comes before a fall’ moral is neither fitting nor suitable as a moral for the Life.
An alternative reading of the Life is that Aesop is not hubristic at all. Rather, Aesop delivers harsh (yet warranted) criticism of those in power: Aesop challenges Zenas because he is a cruel overseer (§9); he ridicules Xanthus because he is an intellectual fop (§36); he reveals the Pharaoh Nectanebo to be avaricious and petty (§117–23)Footnote 27; and he takes issue with Apollo and the priests of Delphi because they are unduly proud and self-serving (§33, 127). As for the end of the Life, the author does not necessarily want us to nod our heads with approval at the ‘fall of Aesop’ or to conclude that he deserved to die. Rather, we are encouraged to feel a great deal of respect for Aesop's truthfulness, sympathy for his tragic death, and a shared sense of retribution in Delphi's punishment.Footnote 28 In support of this reading, it is notable that the author takes every opportunity to emphasise the wrongdoing of the Delphians, including failing to show gratitude and proper hospitality (§124), engaging in dishonest subterfuge (§127), denying proper burial rites (§132), and refusing sanctuary (§134). Ultimately, Aesop's prophecies of doom for Delphi are fulfilled to the letter and Delphi pays a hefty price for executing an innocent man (§142). Aesop, on the other hand, wins everlasting fame and a reputation for great wisdom.
This reading requires a radical shift in our perspective on Aesop's life and death. It entails reading the ending of the Life not as punishment of Aesop's hubris but as a masterstroke of revenge upon powerful enemies.Footnote 29 To this end, Aesop's telling of the fable of the dung beetle, hare, and eagle is crucially important because it points to the moral of the Life as a whole.Footnote 30 Yet, as we shall see, interpreting this fable is by no means straightforward. We must convincingly resolve the following difficult questions: who is symbolised by the dung beetle, the hare, and the eagle in Aesop's retelling of the fable; what is the analogical argumentFootnote 31 that is being made; and what is the moral of the Life as a whole? In order to fully answer these questions, I will examine a) how the fable has been employed elsewhere in surviving Greek literature and b) how the characters in the fable are analogous to those in the Life.
II
The fable of the dung beetle has been described as a quintessentially Aesopic fable.Footnote 32 The dung beetle makes several appearances in ancient Greek literature (particularly iambic poetry), but the Aesopic fable of the dung beetle (literally) rose to stardom in Aristophanes’ Peace (127–34).Footnote 33 In this play, the rustic hero Trygaeus mounts a giant dung beetle and announces that he will ride it to heaven because, according to the fables of Aesop, the dung beetle was the only winged creature that reached the realm of the gods (Ar. Pax 129–30). It did so ‘because it was at feud with an eagle, on whom it was taking revenge by rolling eggs out of its nests’ (Ar. Pax 133–4).Footnote 34 In the play, Aristophanes extracts full comic value out of the dung beetle's hideous physical appearance, its coprophagic habits, and its unpleasant odour.Footnote 35 Ultimately, however, Trygaeus flies up to heaven to demand an end to the war – just as the dung beetle in the fable calls upon Zeus to punish the eagle. In both cases, Zeus is forced to pay heed to the dung beetle's complaints. Ultimately, the dung beetle is awarded a new role in heaven (as the bearer of Zeus’ thunderbolt), which is a type of apotheosis and ‘heroic divinization’.Footnote 36
The beetle had made a briefer appearance a year earlier when, in Aristophanes’ Wasps (1446–8), Philocleon relates how Aesop was once falsely accused of stealing a libation-bowl and Aesop responded by telling the Delphians a fable.Footnote 37 Philocleon compares himself to the innocent Aesop/dung beetle and, by analogy, claims that he is being falsely accused of theft, battery, and assault. In turn, he compares Bdelycleon to the Delphians who caused Aesop's death. Bdelycleon recognises the allusion to the fable and interrupts his father's storytelling, saying: ‘You'll be the death of me, dammit, you and your beetles!’Footnote 38 The comedy lies in Philocleon's use of the fable as a stalling tactic, his false claim of innocence, and the implication that there will be divine vengeance upon his son, just as the dung beetle successfully achieved divine vengeance against the eagle.Footnote 39
The fable makes another appearance in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (695) when a member of the chorus of women warns a man not to touch her, saying: ‘I'll midwife you as the beetle did the breeding eagle!’Footnote 40 The woman compares herself to the fable's heroic dung beetle, while the reference to midwifery is sarcastic, since the dung beetle certainly caused the eagle's eggs to hatch (albeit prematurely and with destructive violence).Footnote 41
A full version of the fable appears in the Augustana fable collection from the first or second centuries ad.Footnote 42 The fable is told as follows:
An eagle chased a hare. The hare, having no one to help him, saw a beetle, the only creature that the circumstances offered to him as a helper, and supplicated him. The beetle encouraged him, and when he saw an eagle approaching, he begged the eagle not to carry off his suppliant. The eagle, however, scorned the beetle's small size and devoured the hare before the beetle's eyes. Since that incident, the beetle was resentful and kept watching the eagle's nest and, whenever she laid eggs, it would fly up, roll the eggs out of the nest and smash them. This went on until the eagle, being driven away from every place, took refuge with Zeus – for the bird is sacred to him – and begged him to provide her a safe place to give birth. As Zeus let her lay her eggs in his lap, the beetle saw this, made a ball of dung, flew up and when he arrived at Zeus’ lap he dropped it in there. Zeus wanted to shake off the dung, but as he got up he accidentally threw the eggs out. Since then it is said that eagles do not lay eggs during the time that the beetles are around.Footnote 43
The epimythium reads:
The fable teaches not to despise anyone, remembering that no one is so weak as to be unable to avenge himself when abused.Footnote 44
It is notable that this epimythium is sympathetic to the weaker party (that is, the dung beetle) and that there is no suggestion of hubris on the part of the dung beetle. It is also notable that there is a third figure – the hare – in this version of the fable.
The version of the fable told by Aesop in the Life is considerably longer than any of the versions so far described (it occupies six sections of the Vita G, §§134–9). Aesop relates the fable as the Delphians try to drag him away from the shrine of the Muses. In large part, this version of the fable is the same as the Augustana version although there is special emphasis on the dung beetle's revenge.Footnote 45 The dung beetle is ever watchful as it seeks out opportunities to destroy the eagle's eggs. In desperation, the eagle deposits its eggs with Zeus. The dung beetle crafts a ball of dung and flies around Zeus’ head prompting the god to jump up from his seat and the eggs to fall from his lap and smash on the ground. When Zeus learns of the eagle's behaviour, Zeus admonishes the eagle for its wrongdoing, saying: ‘You deserved to lose your eggs, for you have wronged the dung-beetle’ (τὸν κάνθαρον ἀδικήσας §138) but the dung beetle is not satisfied with this admonition and it argues for a more drastic penalty. The dung beetle says to Zeus: ‘Not only has she wronged me, but she has been very impious toward you as well. I had adjured her in your name, but she was unconcerned and killed the one who sought my protection. I will never stop until I have punished her to the fullest extent’ (§138). Zeus tries to persuade the dung beetle to reconcile but the tiny insect is intransigent.Footnote 46 Zeus must change the nesting season of the eagle.Footnote 47 In keeping with the epimythium of the Augustana version, Aesop tells the fable as a warning that the small and weak may yet seek revenge. He says: ‘In the same way, men of Delphi, you should not despise this temple where I have taken refuge, even though it is a small shrine, but remember the dung-beetle, and revere Zeus, the god of strangers and Olympus’ (§139).
This survey of existing references to the fable reveals that the dung beetle is always victorious, heroic, and ferocious in its tenacity. The important differences are that, firstly, the author of the Life places special emphasis on the dung beetle's revenge, and secondly, the figure of the hare has been introduced into the fable. The epimythium that Aesop supplies in the Life is entirely consistent with the epimythium that is most often associated with this fable, namely that ‘even the weakest may find a means to avenge a wrong’.Footnote 48 Thus, it is reasonable to assume that if the dung beetle fable points to the moral of the Life as a whole, there must be some equivalency between the figures of the Life and the figures of the fable. The question is then, who in the Life represents the dung beetle, who is the eagle, and who, in particular, is the hare?
III
In the Life, Aesop is described as having an exceedingly ugly appearance.Footnote 49 The Life says:
κακοπινὴς τὸ ἰδέσθαι †ɛἰς ὑπηρɛσίαν†, σαπρός, προγάστωρ, προκέφαλος, σιμός, λορδός, μέλας, κολοβός, βλαισός, γαλιάγκων, στρɛβλός, μυστάκων, †προσμηπαῖος† ἁμάρτημα…
Life of Aesop §1[h]e was truly horrible to behold: worthless, pot-bellied, slant-headed, snub-nosed, hunchbacked, leather-skinned, club-footed, knock-kneed, short-armed, sleepy-eyed, bushy-lipped – in short, an absolute miscreant.
This is a highly unusual physical description for a human.Footnote 50 Yet, if a likeness is being drawn between Aesop and a dung beetle, the description matches well in every respect. The dung beetle is small, with a rounded abdomen, a curved head with a frontal horn, a pronotum (with a protruding lobe reminiscent of a hunchback), ribbed wing covers (elytrons) which are often dark brown or black in colour, short forelegs, bent hind legs, tiny compound eyes, and hairy mouthparts.
In the early sections of the Life, Aesop is beetle-like in his activities and his muteness. Like the proverbial dung beetle that lives in the earth and feeds on animal manure, the slave Aesop digs in the fields with only humble fare to sustain him.Footnote 51 Like the dung beetle that is notorious for rolling balls of dung repeatedly up and down a slope, Aesop behaves like a dung beetle, carrying an enormous basket of bread upon his back, then pulling the basket to the top of a hill with his teeth and rolling the basket down the other side while riding on top (§19).Footnote 52 Crucially, Aesop is also beetle-like in his initial muteness. The author of the Life emphasises Aesop's lack of speech: ‘he was dumb and could not utter a word’ (ἦν δὲ καὶ νωδὸς καὶ οὐδὲν ἠδύνατο λαλɛῖν §1).Footnote 53 If Aesop wants to communicate, he must rely on animal-like methods, such as gesture (§§ 3, 4) or the expulsion of vomit (§3). Later in the Life, Aesop compares himself to a small insect that utters wise sayings (§99).Footnote 54
In gratitude for his kindness and piety, Isis rewards Aesop with the power of speech.Footnote 55 While Aesop is asleep, Isis appears with the nine Muses (§7), miraculously removes Aesop's speech impediment and persuades each of the Muses to grant him a gift, namely, the ‘power to compose and elaborate Greek tales’ (λόγων ɛὕρɛμα καὶ μύθων Ἑλληνικῶν πλοκὴν καὶ ποιήσɛις §7).Footnote 56 The goddess then prays that Aesop will achieve fame, and she departs.Footnote 57 When Aesop awakes, he suddenly realises that he can speak (§8).Footnote 58 He reasons that it must be a reward for his piety and exclaims: ‘Surely it is a good thing to be pious! No doubt I can expect to receive even more rewards from the gods!’ (§8).Footnote 59 From this point onwards, Aesop has a new and divine prerogative. He has been given the extraordinary gift of the heuresilogos (‘one who finds the right words or stories’) and the logopoios (‘storyteller’).Footnote 60 Aesop, just like the dung beetle, will work to form well-rounded, polished creations made of simple and homely materials.
Just as the dung beetle is unpleasant to behold but is highly intelligent and capable, Aesop proves to be a living paradox: he is monstrous to look at but gifted in wit and wisdom.Footnote 61 Aesop is continually referred to as ‘rotten’ (σαπρός §§2, 10, 16, 23, 29, 33, 37). He is likened to ‘a specimen of human garbage’ (τὸ ἑπτάμορφον ἀπόμαγμα §14) and ‘human refuse’ (κάθαρμα §§30, 69). Horrified by Aesop's appearance, a slave-dealer declares: ‘Is this a man or a turnip? If he did not speak, I would have said he was a pot or a jar or a goose egg’ (§14). As individuals realise Aesop's wisdom, however, they are forced to admit that he is ‘short on looks [but] long on brains’ (§19), that he is a ‘true Demosthenes’ (§32) and that he is ‘marvellous’ (μακάριος §25). Later he is hailed as a ‘true prophet’ (ἀληθινὸν μάντιν §93), as wiser than others (§§96, 123), and as a ‘beacon of hope for all people forever’ (ɛἰς φῶς γλυκὺ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις δι’ αἰῶνος §107). It is notable that κάνθαρος has a double meaning as both ‘beetle’ and ‘wine-cup’, and that Aesop embodies this paradox: he is beetle-like in his appearance but more than once compares himself to an ugly wine jar that contains delicious wine (§26, 88).
It is also notable that Aesop, in the manner of a dung beetle, is unashamedly preoccupied with scatological matters. For example, Aesop worries that his new master Xanthus, who likes to urinate while he walks, will expect Aesop to defecate whilst flying (πɛτόμɛνον χέζɛιν §28); Aesop is able to explain, better than anyone else, why it is that we turn around to examine our faeces after we defecate (for fear that we have lost our wits, §67); Aesop causes Xanthus and his guests to contract diarrhoea by serving them only tongues for dinner (§§51–3); and Aesop delights in publicly exposing the rear end and ‘eyes’ of Xanthus’ wife while she is asleep (§77a).Footnote 62 Aesop's preoccupation with scatological matters is certainly reminiscent of the dung beetle's keen interest in manure.Footnote 63
Just as the balls of dung created by the dung beetle are rich in nutrients but also rather off-putting,Footnote 64 Aesop's speech is carefully crafted and useful to some but highly offensive to others. Aesop uses his complete freedom of speech (an extreme form of παρρησία) to call out injustice (§9); to label masters as slaves and slaves as masters (§§13, 126); to deliberately misinterpret thoughtless, mundane questions (§25); and to ridicule the imprecise use of language (§§38–41). Aesop's criticisms are useful and amusing to those who are lower down in the social hierarchy, such as slaves and students, but they are deeply offensive to those who belong to the higher echelons of society. While Aesop argues that he is very useful as an averter of evil (§14), for example, his overseer Zenas complains that as soon as Aesop began to speak, he started uttering ‘inhuman things’ (λαλɛῖν γὰρ ἀρξάμɛνος πάντα ὑπὲρ ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν φθέγγɛται §10).
The analogy with the dung beetle takes on even greater significance when Aesop reaches Delphi. After the Delphians falsely accuse Aesop of hierosylia, Aesop takes refuge in the small shrine of the Muses. According to Steiner, the smallness of the dung beetle in the fable echoes the small shrine of the Muses, while the grand eagle mirrors the ‘grandiose temple of Apollo’.Footnote 65 Just like the dung beetle in the fable, Aesop (once wronged) is tenacious and unforgiving. The dung beetle mercilessly follows the eagle and destroys its eggs three times.Footnote 66 Similarly, Aesop's death brings three disasters upon the Delphians: famine, payment of compensation, and war. Like the dung beetle that uses a great ball of dung to shock Zeus into paying attention to its appeal, putting a piece of the lowliest, earthly matter (literally) in front of the nose of the supreme Olympian god, Zeus cannot ignore ugly little Aesop's claim for justice and he orders the Delphians to expiate the death of Aesop.Footnote 67 Zeus finally achieves peace by enforcing a new and permanent separation between Aesopic wisdom (represented by the dung beetle) and the ruthlessness of power (represented by the eagle).Footnote 68
So far, we have established some strong parallels between Aesop and the dung beetle. As for the eagle, the analogy with Apollo (and the Delphians) may seem obvious.Footnote 69 The eagle is, after all, a ‘superior, top-rank bird as indicated by its close relationship with Zeus’, just as Apollo is the son of Zeus.Footnote 70 Even so, there are several references to eagles throughout the Life that are worth a closer look.
In §81 of the Life, the Samians are deliberating over who should assume the official title of law-keeper when an eagle suddenly swoops down, snatches the official ring of the city, and flies away. The eagle later returns and drops the ring into the lap of a public slave (§82). The Samians resolve to call a seer or priest to interpret the omen when an elderly man suggests that it would be preferable to seek advice from a wise person rather than consulting ‘men who fill their bellies with the cult offerings’ (§81). Here we have a clear statement of opposition between those who hold official titles and those with ‘real sophia’. Aesop agrees to interpret the omen but he does so only after clarifying that he is not a seer (οὔτɛ γάρ ɛἰμι μάντις §84).Footnote 71 Aesop's interpretation gives due recognition to the eagle as ‘the king of birds, stronger than all the others’ (§91) but he then interprets the eagle's conduct as an omen of war and enslavement (§91). In the immediate context, Aesop's interpretation proves accurate because an ambassador from Lydia appears and tries to ‘enslave’ the Samians by demanding tribute and taxes. In a broader sense, however, Aesop's interpretation implies that deference to Apollo (symbolised by the eagle) leads to enslavement.Footnote 72
If this seems like rather harsh criticism of Apollo, we need only examine Aesop's equally harsh criticisms of Apollo elsewhere in the Life. In §33, Aesop is asked to explain the occurrence of false dreams. Aesop does so by telling an aetiological fable: when Apollo became too proud of his prophetic gifts, Zeus punished him by allowing men to accurately see the future in their dreams. When Apollo subsequently begged Zeus for forgiveness, Zeus restored the balance by creating false dreams, which confuse men and prompt them to once again seek Apollo's guidance.Footnote 73 In telling this fable, Aesop undermines Apollo in several ways: he presents Apollo as an arrogant upstart, he shows that there are avenues for prophecy aside from Apollo, and he reminds the audience that even Apollo himself is subject to Zeus’ authority. Aesop later indicates that he does not think much of Apolline bird-omens describing them as ‘useless’ (ɛἰς μάτην §77).Footnote 74
Another important episode involving eagles occurs in §111 of the Life when the Pharaoh Nectanebo challenges King Lycurgus (and his advisor Aesop) to build a tower that touches neither heaven nor earth. Aesop captures four eagles, plucks out the last row of tail feathers, attaches cords to them as reins and trains them to carry jockeys on their backs. In doing so, Aesop reduces the supreme eagle to a degraded race-track animal, simultaneously downgrading Apollo's status and elevating the roles of ordinary men in order to create a new race of ‘winged men’ (πτηνοὺς ἀνθρώπους §116). When Aesop displays his ‘winged men’ to Nectanebo, the pharaoh is astonished. Aesop's ability to turn ordinary folk into ‘winged men’ may be interpreted as an allusion to Aesop's ability to equip men with wisdom and wit, a feat that is achieved at the expense of Apollo!Footnote 75 No wonder then, that when Aesop returns triumphantly to Babylon, King Lycurgus erects a golden statue of him with the Muses (in effect, replacing Apollo with Aesop §123). Apollo has, quite simply, become redundant.
None of this bodes well for Aesop's relationship with Apollo. At §100, Aesop erects a shrine to the Muses along with a statue of himself instead of Apollo (οὐκ Ἀπόλλωνος). This is said to provoke Apollo's anger in the manner of his wrath with Marsyas: ὁ Ἀπόλλων ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ ὡς τῷ Μαρσύᾳ.Footnote 76 The reference to Marsyas is full of symbolism and it anticipates a bad end for Aesop.Footnote 77 Pervo regards Aesop as entering into a dangerous Marsyas-style ἀγών with Apollo, from which we learn that ‘[t]he ugly asiatic marsyases of this world will be torn to pieces by its apollos’.Footnote 78
Yet, Aesop is not the only one who has a problematic relationship with Apollo and again one suspects that Aesop's criticism of Apollo is perhaps not so much hubristic as it is justified.Footnote 79 Zeus is said to have punished Apollo for his arrogance in the fable told at §77, and in the fable of the dung beetle, the hare and the eagle, Zeus also puts the eagle in its place. When Zeus learns of the eagle's mistreatment of the dung beetle, we recall that Zeus reprimands the eagle and that, furthermore, Zeus’ final solution negatively impacts the eagle, not the dung beetle (§139). All of this suggests that Zeus is justifiably concerned to keep Apollo in check.Footnote 80
The analogy between Apollo and the eagle extends further to the Delphians as the representatives of Apollo on earth.Footnote 81 In particular, it is said in the Life that Apollo was angry with Aesop and that the Delphians planted the cup in his baggage (§127).Footnote 82 To this end, and given Aesop's animosity toward Apollo (and vice versa) it seems paradoxical that Aesop wanted to visit Delphi at all (§124). Did Aesop know that he was putting himself in danger and was he, in effect, ‘throwing down the gauntlet before Apollo's face’?Footnote 83 At §94, for example, he appeared to prophesy his own death when he talked about the life of a slave ‘ending in a narrow path, rugged, with sheer cliffs’. In addition, when he is accused of stealing the cup, he bravely says, ‘Let me die if I am found guilty of any such charge’ (§128).Footnote 84 If Aesop does anticipate his own end at Delphi, this certainly does not prevent him from harshly criticising the Delphians. Aesop compares the Delphians to the leaves of the trees,Footnote 85 then to worthless driftwood (§125), and finally to the offspring of slaves (§126) because they live off spoils of war sent by the Greeks.Footnote 86 In the last four fables told by Aesop, he likens the Delphians to murderers, practitioners of bestiality and incest, and brute rapists.Footnote 87
As Kurke has persuasively demonstrated, Aesop's criticisms of Delphi are not only specific to his own circumstances, they are also representative of a wider critique of ‘problematic Delphic practices’.Footnote 88 Aesop calls into question the authority of the Delphic priests and Apollo because the Delphians had become synonymous with ‘greed and rapacity’.Footnote 89 This picture fits well with the rapacious behaviour of the eagle in the dung beetle fable: it snatches a vulnerable suppliant hare from the home of another, tears it to shreds, and devours it in front of the helpless beetle. The eagle should be moved by the dung beetle's plea (especially given that the hare is a suppliant) but the eagle is a slave to its primal instincts.Footnote 90 Aesop implies that slavishness to greed begets a violent nature, which shows no mercy for the victim and no respect for Zeus. Despite Aesop's telling of the fable, the Delphians drag Aesop from the shrine of the Muses and lead him to the edge of the cliff. This is as violent and ruthless as the eagle's treatment of the dung beetle in the fable when ‘the eagle knocked over the beetle with her wing’ (ὁ δὲ ἀɛτὸς τῇ πτέρυγι τὸν κάνθαρον ῥαπίσας §135). The Delphic priests are only concerned to maintain their reputation and their monopoly on power.Footnote 91
On the edge of the cliff, Aesop curses the Delphians and calls on Apollo as head of the Muses to witness his unjust death.Footnote 92 It is unlikely that, at this late stage, after all his criticisms of the god, Aesop is calling on Apollo for help. Rather, Aesop appears to be calling the god to take responsibility for his imminent death,Footnote 93 just as the dung beetle will call the eagle to account before Zeus. Aesop then throws himself over the cliff (ἔρριψɛν ἑαυτὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ κρημνοῦ κάτω §142).
If we are correct in our reading of the Life so far, and Aesop is the dung beetle, and Apollo/Delphi is represented by the eagle then who, precisely, is represented by the hare? The hare in the fable, despite being much larger and stronger than the beetle, supplicates the dung beetle out of desperation and necessity. It is then mercilessly torn to shreds by the eagle. As Steiner has observed, the beetle brings disaster for the eagle, just as Aesop does for Delphi, but the hare is ‘the more immediate and obvious victim. It undergoes the sacrilegious death that is Aesop's own fate and suffers the rapacity of the aggressor’.Footnote 94 Steiner therefore suggests that the hare may be Aesop.Footnote 95 But if Aesop is the hare, then who is the dung beetle? This is van Dijk's solution: Aesop is the hare, the Delphians are the eagle, and his ‘future revengers (Greece, Babylon and Samos) are the dungbeetle’.Footnote 96 The problem with this interpretation is that it ends up assigning the rather unfortunate characteristics of the dung beetle to different and multiple avengers (the Greeks, Babylonians, and Samians).Footnote 97
The best solution is that Aesop is a composite of the hare and the dung beetle.Footnote 98 The hare could be said to represent Aesop's weak mortal self (which is physically torn apart by the eagle/Apollo), and the dung beetle his tenacious and immortal spirit (that part of Aesop that was bestowed upon him by the Muses, journeys to heaven and survives long after his death). In support of the view that there are two elements to Aesop – the mortal and immortal – we need only examine the many stories about the soul of Aesop as well as his resurrection.Footnote 99 Furthermore, this view of Aesop's dualistic nature fits well with the paradoxes we have observed about him elsewhere in the Life:Footnote 100 Aesop is a physical monstrosity but he is eminently good and pious (§26); although a slave in status (§13), he is freer in his thinking and his speech than his social superiors (§36); although he is worthless in worldly terms (three obols §15) he is priceless in terms of his moral value for humanity (§1); although he is seemingly powerless, he has the ability to move the highest god in the cosmos (§142); and although he is vulnerable as a mortal, he achieves a longstanding reputation as a fabulist (§1). Thus, the mortal part of Aesop (the hare) dies, to be sure, but the heroic part (the dung beetle) does not. The immortal Aesop succeeds in achieving divine justice for the hare and punishment for the eagle. In this way, the immortal part of Aesop – that is, his reputation as a fabulist – lives on as testimony to the truth and value of fable.
If, as a mortal, Aesop is vulnerable to being attacked by the likes of Apollo, who is out to extract (literally) sacrificial meat from him, then the metafable of the Life demonstrates that one of the only ways to grapple with the brutality of power is to seek refuge in the divine wisdom of the Muses/Aesop, thereby gaining a powerful and tenacious ally. At a more general level, then, the Life invites us to view Aesop's fables as a powerful resource and ally for ourselves.Footnote 101 In the fable, the dung beetle pleads with the eagle to spare the hare (representing a vulnerable mortal). This reminds us of Aesop's many acts as an intercessor for vulnerable mortals in the Life, such as when Aesop pleaded with Zenas not to mercilessly beat an innocent slave (§9) or when Aesop pleaded with King Croesus to spare the Samians (§98–9). Surely then Aesop may act as an intercessor on our behalf in speaking ‘truth to power’? As Aesop says: ‘do I not also have the power of speech, granted to me by the gods? The master will come soon, and I shall condemn the overseer and have him removed from his position’ (§13). Aesop's fables therefore become an enduring and empowering weapon against the powerful and unjust.
In scholarly literature, the explanation given for Aesop's failure to persuade the Delphians is said to be that Aesop has lost his skill as a logopoios.Footnote 102 In my view, however, Aesop's failure to persuade the Delphians is not because of a sudden deficiency on Aesop's part but because there is no ‘better nature’ to which Aesop can direct his appeal. Hitherto in the Life, Aesop had been vindicated of all false charges: the slave-master realises that he did not steal the figs at §3; the governor releases him from jail at §65; the Samians decide to keep him at §98; and King Lycurgus laments the supposed loss of him at §106. At Delphi, Aesop confronts an opponent who does not speak the language of truth, fear, pity, ethics, justice, or wisdom. He fearlessly hurls fable after fable at his aggressors and still they persist with their plan of violence. At this point in the Life, Aesop has not lost his storytelling ability: quite the opposite. The closely packed sequence of fables told by Aesop represent the climax of the Life. These powerful stories unmistakably present Aesop as innocent and the Delphians as unjust and dishonest.
When speech fails to persuade, the immortal (dung beetle) part of Aesop wreaks havoc on the natural order by appealing to a higher authority to exact justice. Aesop achieves this by administering a ‘shock’: literally forcing the supreme god Zeus to pay attention to him even though he is a seemingly small and insignificant creature. Using his full powers of creativity and intelligence, Aesop (as the dung beetle) engages in an act of poiēsis, conveying a homely substance to the highest levels of heaven in the pursuit of justice.Footnote 103 In the same way, Aesop's homely stories convey powerful truths that resonate on earth (in relationships between humans) and in heaven (in relationships between humans and gods) literally forcing Zeus to take action as arbiter of justice and protector of the weak. Contrary to the views of some, therefore, Aesop (as an embodiment of wisdom) does prove to be an effective weapon against excesses of power. Thanks to Aesop's insistence, Zeus puts Apollo/the Delphians back in their place, just as Aesop systematically outwits and belittles Zenas, Xanthus, Croesus, Lycurgus, Helios, and Nectanebo in the Life. In doing so, Aesop performs a great service for humanity, proving that one should never underestimate a seemingly weak, powerless, and insignificant man.
As we have seen, the ‘pride comes before a fall’ moral does not work since Aesop is not proud and there is no ‘fall’. In contrast, the moral that is usually associated with the fable of the dung beetle, the hare, and the eagle is that ‘even the weakest may find a means to avenge a wrong’. This moral fits much better with the Life because, despite his apparent insignificance, Aesop achieves justice and retribution against the Delphians through his own tenacity and finally, through an appeal to Zeus himself.Footnote 104
The message that ‘even the weakest may find a means to avenge a wrong’ is, admittedly, a more outrageous, provocative, and subversive moral than has generally been assumed for the Life.Footnote 105 If Aesop, as the dung beetle, is ultimately the victor and champion and the hubristic Apollo is put back into his place, then this is not the sort of story that one would risk reading to one's slaves or have one's slave read to one's family, as Hopkins has suggested.Footnote 106 Any reader or listener who interprets the metafable of the Life as we have just done is unlikely to view this story as a ‘fantasy’ that can be given ‘a short airing’ and then safely locked away again. The moral of the Life is profoundly subversive and, if anything, it is more likely to inspire subversion than stifle it.
CONCLUSION
According to Patterson, proof of the significance of the Life ‘can be seen in the various attempts, over time, to clean it up or reshape it to the needs of a less confrontational aesthetic’.Footnote 107 We can see these attempts in the Vita W (a censored version of the Vita G)Footnote 108 and in the ‘cleaner’ Byzantine version of the Life (in which all sexually explicit language has been removed).Footnote 109 In the Vita W, in particular, there is no mention of the Muses,Footnote 110 and Apollo is no longer the enemy of Aesop.Footnote 111 Arguably, these attempts to ‘tone down’ the Life are still operative, particularly in the way in which the moral of the Life has been read and interpreted by some scholars to date. By presenting Aesop as hubristic and his downfall as inevitable, the metafable of the Life has been interpreted in a way that is less confronting to those who would otherwise be unsettled by Aesop's usurpation of authority (and his overt criticism of intellectuals).Footnote 112 The problem with this reading is that it also involves a distortion of both the Life and death of Aesop. As Finkelpearl observes: ‘Aesop has been coopted and domesticated in ways that make him seem far from the iconoclastic “grotesque outsider”’.Footnote 113 The reading of the Life that I have adopted involves viewing Aesop as the living, enduring paradox that he truly is: grotesque, lowly and subversive on the one hand, but wise, tenacious and victorious on the other, just like the tiny dung beetle which proves to be the victor in the fable of the dung beetle and eagle. Thus, the moral of the story is that ‘even the weakest may find a means to avenge a wrong’. This moral indisputably speaks truth to power and is critical of abuses of power.Footnote 114 By giving this moral message its full, proper and rightful recognition, we recover an important part of the Aesopic tradition.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am deeply grateful to Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies for funding which enabled the research that led to this paper. Versions of this paper were presented to audiences at the Celtic Conference in Classics in Coimbra (2019), the ANU Religion Conference in Canberra (2018) and the ANU Classics Seminar Series in Canberra (2017). I thank the participants for their helpful comments and contributions. I also wish to thank Elizabeth Minchin and the editors and anonymous referees for Antichthon.
